The present invention relates to a defect detecting apparatus which can effectively perform inspections and observations on a surface of a sample such as an evaluation on the structure thereof, an observation in an enlarged view, and an evaluation on materials, an electric conduction state and the like on the surface to detect defects on high density patterns having, for example, a minimum line width of 0.15 μm or less with high accuracy and high reliability, and a device manufacturing method which relies on the defect detecting apparatus to inspect patterns intermediate of a semiconductor device manufacturing process.
In the present invention, the word “mapping” as referred to in the mapping optics means that an electron beam is irradiated on a field of view ranging at least one dimension to form an image of the field of view.